


Revenge of the Q

by TheKingInTheMountain



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Anakin and Padmé get caught in the middle, Gen, Picard doesn't have time to deal with this nonsense, Q Continuum, Q Decides to Mess with Picard for the Ten Thousandth Time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:02:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27589937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKingInTheMountain/pseuds/TheKingInTheMountain
Summary: What happens when Q gets bored?Well, it's pretty simple. He gets a Senator from Naboo, and a Jedi Knight, and sends them off to pester Jean-Luc Picard, of course!
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

**En Route to Alderaan...**

It had been far too long since he had taken a vacation.

Nearly three years at war, he had only gotten brief respites - a week or two at a time - returning to the Temple on Coruscant. Even then, they were always more business than pleasure, most of his waking time spent standing in briefings or relaying reports, or overseeing the recuperation of his men in the 501st. The only light in it all, was sneaking off in the night to see her. Even if it was only for a few brief hours, even if they knew their time was woefully short...it was made all worth it by those moments of pure bliss.

There’s a lot to say about Anakin Skywalker. On the HoloNet across the Republic, in schoolyard chatter and at dining room tables, and on gossip flimsis found in salons, he is the Hero With No Fear. The names ‘Kenobi and Skywalker’ are paired together like the right and left hand of the Republic, the two Jedi Knights the closest thing to living legends - the closest to mythical heroes - that anyone alive has ever witnessed. To the Jedi Order, he is the Chosen One, the one who will destroy the Sith once and for all and bring Balance to the Force. To the people in the Outer Rim, who hear stories of a Slave-turned-Knight, they live with the hope that the Sky-Walker will come and break their chains. To the people of the Confederacy, they live in fear for the time when General Skywalker will march on their worlds with his Legion of clonetroopers.

But to himself, he can’t help but feel he’ll never be enough. For someone with such a nickname, he is wracked with Fear. Fear. It consumes him, eats away at him, and exposes every weakness in his soul. For every battle that he and Obi-Wan fight, he feels himself growing more afraid. More afraid of the Future, more afraid that the War won’t end. Afraid that he will never see peace with Padmé. Afraid of what Obi-Wan and the Council will think when he finally tells the truth.

_The truth…_

_It will destroy me..._

“We’re in hyperspace, Ani, there’s no reason to stay at the controls…”

Her voice, shattering his thoughts, broke in like a choir of Angels - like it always did. There was nothing in the Galaxy that could compare to it, and as he turned around in the cockpit chair, he was engulfed in the blinding light of beauty that outshone billions of stars. He felt a lump form in his throat, and all of the worries and the anxieties and the hurt seemed to melt away.

_They always do._

“I know. It’s just…” he looked out into the hyperspace fluttering by them, “it’s beautiful to watch the stars go by…”

“As beautiful as your wife?” And there it was, that gleam in her eyes, the upturned smirk on her face. And he felt the love burn within his heart as passionately as it did the day he saw her in Mos Espa, and the day he reunited with her on Coruscant, and the day he married her at Varykino.

“Well…” he bit his lip in the impish way that she so loved - that he knew she loved - and looked up at her with the same boyish gaze that stole her heart on Naboo, “...maybe.”

“Just think about it, Ani,” she took a seat in the co-pilot’s chair, watching alongside him as the Nubian skiff flung itself towards the green planet that awaited them, “two weeks! Just in time for our anniversary…” she smiled again, and he reached over with his flesh hand to hold her own, “...Bail was kind enough to lend me one of his estates…”

“Does he know?” Anakin felt the fear climb into him. The fear that was always there. The fear that never left him. He tried to fight it, to ignore it, but it grew and grew like a fire, “does he know about us?”

“No! No, of course not…” She soothed him, trying to ease his mind, “I told him that I needed to get away from the Senate, and that I needed a vacation. He and Breha suggested I visit Alderaan, and lent me one of their estates...it’s beautiful Ani, on a lake...like Varykino…” she sighed wistfully, and then looked towards him, “as far as they know…” she grinned, and he felt the fear subside again, “...it’s just me and Threepio.”

“Sounds like a fate worse than death,” he laughed, wondering what a two week ‘vacation’ with the protocol droid would be like. He wouldn’t even wish that on Count Dooku. The fear that had plagued him only seconds before seemed foolish - it always did, in hindsight - and he let it wash away, trying to release it into the Force.

It didn’t quite work like Obi-Wan told him it would, but with his wife by his side, he felt nothing but her blinding love through the Force. Their attachment, their bond, illuminating like ten thousand supernovas exploding at once. He allowed himself to reach into the Force, feeling it swirling around both of them. The pure love, the total commitment to each other, the unadulterated joy and happiness. Peace.

And then he felt something. A disturbance. Something powerful. Something neither Dark, nor Light. Something so incomprehensible, something so beyond him - even as the supposed Chosen One - that he could do nothing except call upon the Force.

“What is it, Ani?” Padmé looked at him, her eyebrow raised in concern. She could see, as he could feel, the worry lines forming on his face.

“Someone’s here,” he suddenly rose to his feet, and unhooked his lightsaber, blue light extending out of the hilt. His battle instincts kicked in, and he searched the skiff with the Force, trying to pinpoint the presence.

What came back not only confused him, but startled him to his core.

It was as if the presence was everywhere, within everything, and yet nowhere and not there at all. Not even Count Dooku and his apprentices had this ability to cast their Force signatures like this. And he felt afraid. He felt the terror of the slave-boy at the whim of the Hutts, the terror of losing his mother twice, the terror of watching as his men fell all around him to battle droids. He was afraid. He was deathly afraid, but he couldn’t show it. His face contorted into defiance, hiding it as best he could from Padmé.

“Show yourself!” He called out, trying to sound confident and sure of himself, but it seemed weak and forced. Anakin didn’t expect a response, and when it came, he nearly fainted from shock.

“Well, if you insist,” a disembodied voice, mocking and jester-like, spoke as if it was standing beside Anakin. There was, quite suddenly, a flash of blinding light only feet in front of him, like a grenade exploding right inside the cockpit. Instinctively raising his lightsaber, stepping in front of Padmé, his confusion and fear only grew more intense as a man materialized out of thin air before them.

He was a human, or at least looked like one, and was a little taller than Anakin. He wore a strange outfit, a red jumpsuit with an insignia on the breast that the Jedi Knight could not recognize. His hair was short, with a noticeable widow’s peak, and his eyes seemed to be filled with...amusement! 

“So this is the Hero With No Fear?” The being stepped forward, as if Anakin was holding a stick and not a lightsaber, and walked up towards the defiant Knight with a bold grin on his face, “I must say...you’re younger than I expected.”

“Who the kriff are you?” Anakin pointed his lightsaber directly at the man’s throat, his fear turning into anger as the man mocked him, “and how the kriff did you get here?”

“I doubt even Master Yoda could figure out that riddle,” the man scoffed, taking a seat quite casually at one of the consoles. Anakin was so taken back by this response that he lowered his lightsaber, but still stood defensively in front of Padmé, “and this must be Senator Amidala, of the Naboo! Oh, you and Jean-Luc would get along like fast friends!”

“Don’t speak to her!” Anakin couldn’t hide the anger in his voice, but he felt himself stuck to the ground. He could feel the power of this...man?...being?....emanating from the Force. He was more powerful than any Jedi he ever knew, or any Dark Sider for that matter, “you still haven’t answered my question.”

“Senator, tell your boy-toy to put down his laser-stick, and maybe I’ll answer his questions,” Anakin clenched the lightsaber, looking down at Padmé with shock in his eyes. How did he know? How could anyone know? Who was he?

“Ani, do as he says,” Padmé urged him, and it was only through this intervention that Anakin yielded, his lightsaber powering down in his hands, “now, I think we’re owed an explanation. Knight Skywalker and I are on an important diplomat-”

“Oh! There’s no need to play coy with me, Padmé...may I call you Padmé?” The man leaped from the chair, and began walking about the room, “I, for one, don’t agree with the Jedi Code at all! It’s so boring...and old...and uninspired...You give mortals a taste of omnipotence, and what do they do? They make a religion out of it!” He sighed, as if he was a God speaking down to mere...mortals? 

If Anakin wasn’t confused by now - and he certainly was - he could barely stand at this point. He looked to Padmé, his only source of strength, and stepped away slightly, allowing the conversation to flow, “I don’t understand what this has to do with us, or what you’re doing here,” he tried to speak in, mustering as much Hero-With-No-Fear that he could in such a vulnerable moment.

“Well, Jean-Luc has been rather boring lately. Or should I say...will be boring in...oh...a two million years? Time is...well...not even a Jedi Master or a Sith Lord could understand that,” he laughed, “anyway, he refuses to cooperate with me anymore. He thinks that because he ‘won his trial’, such a silly thing I might add, then he is free of me…” he sighed, “well, I think that I deserve to give him a little present, to remind him that I’m still around. A Q’s job is never done, after all.”

“A Q? What in the name of the Gods is a Q?” Even Padmé’s voice seemed filled with exasperation, and fear, and confusion, and in a strange way, it made Anakin feel less conflicted in his own.

“The Continuum is so far beyond your ‘Force’ and your ‘Jedi Order’ that I don’t think you can even comprehend it,” the Q shook his head, and then snapped his fingers. Suddenly his garb was replaced by the traditional robes of a Jedi Master, brandishing his own lightsaber on the belt, “Most powerful, the Continuum is. Beyond the conception of mortals, it is,” the Q mocked Master Yoda’s voice, and Anakin had to suppress a smirk, “ah! Well, I see that you, young Skywalker, are already more fun than Jean-Luc ever will be!”

And then a smirk fell upon the Q’s face. And Anakin suddenly wished he didn’t laugh at the joke after all.

“That gives me an idea…” The Q raised his hand up, his fingers moving towards a snap, “let’s go pay Jean-Luc a visit, shall we?”

“Wait, what?!” Anakin and Padmé spoke at the same time, but their vision was suddenly replaced with Light. Blinding Light.

It was as if Anakin was thrust into a Sun in the midst of exploding. He couldn’t see himself, or the skiff’s cockpit. He couldn’t even feel the Force. He couldn’t feel Padmé’s presence. All that consumed him was the Q’s presence, as if it was overriding his own. In the split second of the Light, he fought with all his might to resist. To break out of it.

And, in that split second, he broke free. Or did he?

As vision returned to him, the light subsiding in the milliseconds between blindness and sight, he reached out into the Force and felt Padmé’s presence. He could even feel Threepio and Artoo right beside him. But strangely, he felt over a thousand presences, unfamiliar and foreign and strange.

Opening his eyes, Anakin saw a beige cockpit. It was more than a cockpit, it was like a star destroyer’s bridge. And there were men and women and aliens standing around, in the same uniform that the Q wore when he first appeared, though some of them with different colors. They looked towards the four, who materialized in the dead center of the room, with apprehension and fear.

Anakin didn’t need the Force to see it.

“Q!” A bald man rose from the center chair, his voice sounding too much like Obi-Wan for Anakin’s own good. His voice was not one of anger, or of even surprise...but more like...frustration, “What is this?”

“Oh, mon capitaine, did you think I forgot about you?” The Q - or was it just Q? - spoke, standing right beside Anakin, still wearing the Jedi Master robes, “I assure you, Jean-Luc, that while I have been terribly busy with Continuum business, I have not forgotten about our friendship! And so I have brought presents!”

“I am not a present!” Anakin growled, reaching instinctively for his lightsaber. But the presence of more than a few armed guards, wearing yellow jumpsuits and holding pistols at the ready, persuaded him otherwise. He reached out in the Force, and could sense their apprehension as much as his own. 

_They are not your enemies, Padawan. Trust the Force._ He could hear Obi-Wan’s voice say.

“Q! The Trial is over! I want you off my bridge this instant!” The man with the clipped accent demanded, and Anakin sensed frustration - not anger - at Q’s presence.

“Jean-Luc, don’t you know that anger is the path of the Dark Side?” Q grinned, making a jest at both Anakin’s and Jean-Luc’s expense, “come now, Picard, is this any way to treat the Hero With No Fear, who singlehandedly destroyed four hundred Battle Droids in the last week alone? Or the noble Senator of the Naboo, who led her people as a Queen when she was only fourteen years old?”

“Q, we don’t have time for this,” a bearded man, in the same red jumpsuit as the other, spoke up from beside the balded man. His eyes betrayed his contempt for Q, and Anakin wondered how these people could be so casually dismissive to a being that had such power in the Force. Are they even more powerful than he is? Anakin sensed no Force-sensitives on the ship, and he grew even more confused, “if this is your way of trying to stall us from reaching Targus IV, then this is the worst joke you’ve ever had.”

“Oh, Riker, you know that the trivialities of climate change on some backwater colony don’t concern me,” Q suddenly looked towards Anakin and Padmé, and his face turned once more into a grin, “but I know the two heroes of the Final Days of the Galactic Republic would certainly be interested,” not allowing another word in edgewise, Q continued, “I tell you what, Jean-Luc, I’ll leave the two lovebirds with you while I go off and deal with some Continuum business. Does that sound good?”

“No!” Jean-Luc protested, “I refuse to play this game any longer.”

“Oh, good! I’ll be back in...oh...well...soon!” And with that, Q snapped his fingers.

And was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

“Security Team to the Bridge,” Worf growled behind Picard, and deep down the Captain was glad that - at least - Worf had never grown accustomed to Q’s intrusions.

“Belay that order, Commander,” Picard replied, turning his attention fully to the four people now standing in front of him. There was a man, his dirty blonde hair locked and curly down to his neck, wearing the robes of a monk but with a strange cylindrical device hooked to his belt. Beside him, a woman wearing a modest green dress, her hair done up into a braid, seemed to move closer and cling to the monk’s side. Further away from them, closer to Data’s console, was a golden-man (or perhaps a primitive android?) standing beside what appeared, to him, to be something resembling a trashcan on wheels, “I suspect that these four are as much victims to Q’s games as we are, I’m afraid.”

“Oh dear, oh, Master Ani, Mistress Padmé...oh Heavens…” The golden android began to speak, but was hushed by the woman.

“Quiet, Threepio, please…” she urged, and then turned towards Picard, “I am Senator Padmé Amidala, of the Senate of the Galactic Republic, and this is Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker...we were en route to Alderaan on a…” Picard saw the brief, split second, hesitation in her words, “...a diplomatic conference to resolve the current war, and suddenly this...this...Q...appeared on our ship and brought us here.”

“You must forgive me, Senator, but we have no knowledge of anything you speak of…” Picard spoke mournfully, directing a little anger in his thoughts to Q, for bringing a group of innocents to torture him, “...Data, do you have any records of a human settlement called Alderaan?”

“One moment, Captain,” Data paused for a millisecond, as he processed the request, “no, Captain. The Federation does not have any records of a planet named Alderaan, nor does it have any data regarding a Galactic Republic, or a Jedi Knight.”

“What?” The man - Anakin, Picard guessed - spoke, sounding quite flustered, “how is that possible?”

“The entity known as Q has, in the past, gone to great lengths to disrupt the mission of the Enterprise,” Data began speaking, launching in a litany of Q’s antics to date, “he has, with the Enterprise-D alone, transported us to a false dimension of Earth’s past to stand trial for Humanity, brought the Enterprise into Borg Space…” Picard began to tone him out, and then waved him off.

“That’s enough, Data,” Picard stepped forward, his arms open in a conciliatory and friendly gesture, “it’s possible that Q brought you from the future. To what end, I must admit that not even I know,” the Captain could see the worrisome looks on the new arrivals, and he quickly changed the subject.

We won’t be able to solve this mystery right now, and we have bigger problems to deal with at the moment.

“I am Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the Federation starship Enterprise. This is my First Officer, Commander Riker, and that right there…” he gestured towards the android Third Officer, “is Commander Data, the only functional android in the Federation,” Picard glanced over towards the golden robot, “though, it appears the future has much in store for us.”

“He’s a ‘droid?” Anakin raised his eyebrow, looking towards Data with inquisitive eyes, “I’ve never seen a more lifelike droid in my life!” 

“I’m sure you’ll be able to learn everything in due time, but right now, we have an important mission to accomplish on Targus IV,” Picard glanced over towards Troi, who was eyeing Anakin with great curiosity. She held the same look that she had whenever her mother - damn that infernal woman - came aboard, “Counselor Troi will escort you to quarters. I can arrange a proper tour of the Enterprise when our mission is accomplished, and then we can get to the bottom of Q’s game.”

“Thank you for your hospitality, Captain,” Padmé bowed her head, and Anakin followed suit. 

“Right this way, I’ll show you to our guest quarters,” Troi rose to her feet and led the four of them into the turbolift closest to the ready room. When the doors whizzed shut, Picard looked towards Data and Riker.

“Data, I want you to uncover anything...anything...in the computer library regarding a Galactic Republic...or an Alderaan...or a Jedi Knight,” Picard ordered, with Data affirming and turning back to his station.

“Q never tires of his games, does he?” Riker grunted, looking out as the warp field pushed the ship closer to their destination.

“No, he doesn’t, Number One…” Picard sighed, and sat back down in his chair, “the worst part is, I’m not even sure what his angle is this time.”

Though he was sure, as sure as Sol rises in the East and sets in the West, as sure as the stars twinkling in the blackness of space, that he would find out soon enough.


End file.
